Grief-stricken father of Taipei water park burn victim commits suicide

The father of a recovering burn victim from last month’s “party powder” explosion at Taipei’s Formosa Fun Coast water park committed suicide over the weekend.The 63-year-old man, surnamed Wang, went missing after he and his wife visited his second son, who’d sustained burns over 20 percent of his body, in the Chang Kung Memorial hospital on Saturday. The man’s body was later found by his eldest son after he had apparently committed suicide by hanging.Police said that Wang had most likely decided to end his life because of the ‘physical and mental toll from his son’s ordeal,’ Taipei Times reports.Social workers who were assigned to visit family members of the burn victims said Wang had not displayed abnormal behavior prior to his death, and the hospital said it was regrettable, as his son had only suffered relatively minor injuries and was recovering well.A total of 370 people are still being treated in the hospital for burns sustained in the water park blaze. Seven people have died from their injuries while 174 remain in critical condition.